Car boot sale booty
Had a fruitful afternoon at the local car boot sale. For our friends in the U.S. a car boot sale is a bit like your yard sales except sellers load up their car boots (trunks to you guys) and meet up in a field or large space that's been organised for the event. They pay a small fee to enter and usually set up a table of some kind and spread their junk or whatever on it and around the car. Buyers come and browse the stalls and buy your stuff if they like it. It's a very popular event here and is usually going on in most towns on Sundays throughout the UK. Now for a CBG builder they can be a good source of cheap materials for your projects. It's great fun rummageing through boxes for bits and bobs and haggling down the price. They are mostly held between Spring and Autumn but there was an early one today. So what did I find?
The suitcase. I saw an idea for using an old rigid case as a bass drum. I bought a battered old pedal on Ebay a while ago and needed a case. It's got a good "thump" to it. I'm going to make a wooden base to hold it upright and stop the pedal knocking it over. It's a yukky green colour and very scratched. Not sure yet but I might part spray it a better colour then paint a SMOJO cigar box guitar banner across the front. Just when I was getting over the excitement of this little find, I found something even better. Check out this baby. It's an old (maybe 1940's) extension loudspeaker made for plugging into an old valve (tube) radio. Measures about 12x10 inches. Look at the fantastic retro design of it. Made from bent plywood it has a cool bakelite volume control knob with the makers name embossed on it. The speaker grill has a nice old patterned cloth behind it. So what's the big deal? Well how about fitting a 1/4 jack socket and wiring it to a small battery powered amp inside the cabinet. I can fit a new volume pot but use the original knob. What a cracking little retro amp it will make for playing my CBGs through and I imagine the sound quality will be pretty rich with the heavy ply construction. It will definitley bee a keeper for me when it's done.
Here's a screen rough graphic of a possible design for the case drum. What do you reckon?
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2 comments:
Cool stuff you got. That speaker will look superb as an amp.
If you spray the suitcase with your Smojo design it'll mean you'll have to do concerts or busking :-) The design will demand it!
Quite excited about both projects. Need to get some guitars built first though. I played around with a design for the case. An orange or red on black looked great. Wondering whether to spray the front black or what. I'll try to post it on here for possible feedback.
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